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Post by yanmacca on Feb 6, 2020 14:39:42 GMT
Chuck, I want to throw a big ‘WHIF’ into the mix, but did the Japanese have to take on the USA? What if they stuck to conquering the nations which were held by the European colonial powers example, Britain, France and Holland. These countries had oil, tin and rubber, which the Japs craved. Plus, these are also countries which their German allies were either at war with or had been overrun by the Nazi's in 1940.
The USA had Russia had both left Germany to do what it wanted in Europe and for that Africa and let the Japs hit China. So, if the Japanese had not hit Pearl Harbour and left all American interest intact and just hit the Colonial empires, would the US keep out of it?
Imagine if the Japanese put their full weight against the British and others, they may have even got to Australia and captured all of India.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 6, 2020 17:02:34 GMT
Ian: Your question is the type of questions that both our countries have war colleges existing for.
Like most everything else strategic, the answer must be in context with events.
1) The United States had placed a steel and oil embargo on Japan as a response to Japanese adventurism in China. For an island, industrialized nation that is a death sentence.
2) There was a hot war being waged in the North Atlantic between the U S Navy and the German Navy. We had already lost one destroyer (Reuben James) and had another torpedoed (Kearny). In addition several U S flagged merchant ships carrying supplies to Britain had been attacked and sunk, and we had damned near lost a battleship (Texas) who was in the sights of a U Boat. Can't recall why the U Boat did not fire, but I think it was a mechanical problem. Japan therefore had the instability of Hitler to contend with. Had there been another Lusitania or Zimmerman telegram, Japan could have found herself sucked into a war, because they were allies to that idiot Hitler.
3) The U S Fleet had moved from San Diego to Hawaii, on Roosevelt's order, and regardless of the fact that this move was unwise for a number of reasons. The chief among them was the base at Pearl was not nearly well developed enough for a total fleet base. Roosevelt argued that the fleet being in Hawaii would deter war. The secondary argument he made was it put the fleet 3000 miles closer to Japan, and thus in position to reinforce the Philippines faster.
4) The Philippines, no matter which way that Japan advanced southward toward the British, French, and Dutch colonies, they would have to travel east or west of the Philippines, or both. That would put the Philippines on either the right or left flank of Japan's southward expansion. Japan was not adverse to taking risks, but that was a risk too far.
5) Any Japanese Military or Naval officer that picked up the 1941 edition of "Jane's Fighting Ships" could see the naval handwriting on the wall for Japan. The U S Navy Two Ocean Fleet, would by 1945 so overwhelm Japan that it would, by numbers alone make it impossible for Japan to wage war at sea, therefore unable to get the steel and oil they required from the south, The Two Ocean Fleet would mean Japan would be not on a par, not inferior, but rather completely dominated at sea, and no island industrialized nation can risk that coming to pass. Consider the UK, What if the German Fleet was brand new, Bismarck/Tirpitz brand new, and they outnumbered the middle aged Royal Navy ten to one. How long could Britain have lased in a war? That was what Japan faced by 1945, and had no answer for it.
So to your question, putting on my war college head master's hat, the answer is that Japan must go to war with the United States if it was willing to go to war with the British and Dutch (the French by that time were a non-player). They could not get to what the coveted without taking the Philippines as flank protection, and they had to do something to the U S Fleet to prevent that fleet from reinforcing the Philippines.
The flip side of the above is that no nation really has to go to war. Not going to war with the United States though would mean that Japan would have to give up its pipe dream of empire, get out of China quickly, remove themselves from the Axis alliance, and negotiate its way back to normalcy with Britain and the United States. They would also have to put aside the hatred they had as a result of the imperialism of the United States, Britain, France, and the Dutch. They were in a real bind. They could not feed their people, thus China, they we devoid (for the most part) of the natural resources an industrial society demands, thus the need for southward expansion. When you couple this with a seventeenth century warlord mentality in a twentieth century world, the loss of face, important to the people of the Far East would create internal destabilization in Japan, the extent of which, and consequences of cannot even be measured at this late date.
You must factor into all these things that in the Far East the native peoples resented to the point of all out hatred the imperial powers. Those powers looked upon the situation as protection of economic interests, while the natives looked upon it as economic rape. It was not dissimilar to the current status in the Middle East. Imagine living next door to a an overgrown bully, that you are forced to ask permission to take a pee from, in your own house, then having that son of a bitch inspect your toilet afterwards. The west is not blameless in this. They were every bit as much responsible for World War II in the Pacific as the Japanese.
Strategy is the point where politics and the military join together to find solutions of either good or ill. If you can'r solve your problems on a political basis, and Japan could but not in 41, rather in 1921, then war with the United States was inevitable
Excellent question.
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mac
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,790
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Post by mac on Feb 7, 2020 10:49:25 GMT
Here are some historical footnotes to the bigger picture.
Cheers
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Post by herosrest on Feb 7, 2020 18:58:46 GMT
Thank you. The point to the campaign across the Central Pacific was development of naval supremecy to eliminate Japan's strike carriers. The Island hopping was intended to bring about the battle's of 1944 which altered the balance of power by removing Japan's ability to undertake the strategy which was so successful in 1942. The route was deep water open seas against limited land based airpower until the major battles of 1944. A complicatedly simple dichotomy existed between both US and Japanese Army and Navy mentality. Both nations were stronger for it. MacArthur was at the end of the supply chain, an immensely long one and this matterially imposed upon him the tactics which he adeptly adopted. A damaged fleet carrier could be in refit with crew in R&R at Pearl Harbour in a week. You could not do that with an infantry division. MacArthur had to be lean and his mean was 'wither on the vine'. This happened to many of Japan's Central Pacific island garrisons also so the strategy was not unique to the southwestern campaign. Did MacArthur have to invade the Philipines? It could have been bypassed. The tandem approach played out to shorten hostilities and can be likened to termites devouring a fallen log - Allied force simply struck where and when its means enabled it to and kept Japan on the hop whilst it was bled dry and mangled by the total war which it began. The problem Japan faced was that the US could not rationalise suffering defeat. Japan was stopped by 8th Fighter Group at Port Moresby durin May and June 1942. This was the first time the IJN were prevented from dominating the air and the war of attrition began. The initial supply chain effort of early 1942 was an unrecognised miracle and incredible achievement matched only by those who undertook it and those who fought its sharp end. youtu.be/F53Mo374edg
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Feb 8, 2020 11:22:23 GMT
The thank you goes to the greatest generation and the management team of allied nations.
Mac, could not by pass the Philippines, the slaughter of locals and POW's would have been massive. Not to mention leaving the that size garrison of your enemy in your rear.
You allude to total war and I ask you could Sherman have by passed Atlanta? I think not.
Regards, Tom
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Post by quincannon on Feb 8, 2020 18:04:03 GMT
I can see merit in both of these opinions.
The Philippine Islands were more of a political objective than a military one. MacArthur had made it so, coupled with the upcoming granting of Philippine independence scheduled originally for 1946. So from the perspective of giving our word, the Philippines must be invaded and the Japanese thrown out.
From a purely military viewpoint though, I think HR is correct. Gaining the Philippines gave us no material advantage, considering it would take nearly a year, by best estimates to eject the Japanese that held it. Had we depended upon the Philippines alone to give us the bases from which to launch a protracted air campaign against the Japanese home islands, the war would have lasted considerably longer.
The Battle of the Philippine Sea completely destroyed Japanese air power. The Battle of Leyte Gulf destroyed the last offensive capability of the Japanese Navy. Now Leyte Gulf was generated by the invasion of Leyte to be sure, but I would argue that a faint in that direction, vice a landing, would have triggered the same counter move by the Japanese.
A Japanese garrison, and it was a large on in the Philippines, had no offensive capabilities outside those islands, so leaving the Philippines as is, in the rear, did not present all that much of a problem. The islands could not be reinforced, nor could the Japanese project power beyond the islands. So the end result would be that the Japanese garrison, would be just as stuck in the Philippines as they were on their other island fortresses. Of course all this is based upon the success of the air/sea campaign in the Central Pacific.
So I can see HR's point, but I can also see Tom's, and again I conclude both are correct, but from different perspectives. Had I had to make that decision though, I would have invaded the Philippines, not for military value alone though, but rather for the good will generated by keeping a promise, and the value it still has a base in a "Friendly" nation in the far east, or more plainly a Fort Abraham Lincoln on the far frontier, to help protect us from the Chinese Indians.
Yes Sherman could have bypassed Atlanta, and still unhinged the Confederate Army in the same way he did by attacking it
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mac
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,790
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Post by mac on Feb 10, 2020 11:57:45 GMT
"Philippines, not for military value alone though, but rather for the good will generated by keeping a promise, and the value it still has a base in a "Friendly" nation in the far east"
Yes QC , this is the long vision of great political leadership. It is the idea I was heading towards with the data about the Kokoda campaign. Certainly Australians wanted to defend Port Moresby and thus Australia but the long game for the US is to build a strategic relationship in a culturally similar region on the southern edge of Asia. In the case of Australia I think that investment has paid off quite well over the years (both ways). Modern politicians often take way too short a view of the consequences of their actions.
Cheers
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 10, 2020 12:18:52 GMT
Looking at a 1941 map, you can clearly see how any Japanese advance south, would affect the Philippines in a number of ways. To advance past Singapore would be enough, but even with conquering Burma, Thailand, Indochina and Malaya would give the Japanese a fair amount of the raw materials they needed, and this would free up IJA to concentrate on Indian and even Hitler’s ambitious ‘Fall Orient’ [Operation Orient].
So, would this halt at Malaya be enough to stop any conflict with the US? I know that this means leaving the Dutch East Indies and Australia, but given that any attack from a combined UK/ANZAC force coming from Australia would be unlikely for now, would this gamble have paid off?
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Post by quincannon on Feb 10, 2020 16:50:28 GMT
Ian: In August of 41 Roosevelt met Churchill on board the Prince of Wales, and that meeting produced what became known as the Atlantic Charter. That agreement has bound us together as an alliance between nations ever since. I know a little about what was discussed, the version which came to public attention as the principles contained in the Charter, but I do not think anyone knows what those two discussed in private.
What I do know is that following the revealing to the public of that meeting, Japan had no further illusions that it could bite off a bit of British territory in the Pacific, and avoid severe repercussions from the United States. Therefore they made the (valid) assumption that a strike against Britain would be a strike against the United States.
We knew of the Japanese troop movements against Malaya well in advance of the landings there. In fact one of the reasons the Pearl Harbor raid was so successful is that we made the assumption that the Japanese could not walk and chew gum at the same time. We thought we knew what they were going to do and were basing our actions upon that rather than basing our actions upon what the Japanese could do. That is always a fatal mistake in either combat or everyday life.
So no, there was not a snowball's chance in hell that the Japanese would bypass the Philippines, NONE. They had to assume any action on their part would cause a reaction on our part because they did not know what Roosevelt and Churchill had spoken about in private. They had to assume that Churchill was holding an American ace as his hole card.
Ain't international strategy a bitch?
Wish we had the presence of that Pearl Harbor guy that was thrown off of the other board for being a scholar on these things. We could all use his insights.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 11, 2020 12:18:21 GMT
I suppose that the Japanese were on a hiding to nothing no matter what they did, which makes the options what they took even more crazy, as they didn’t have their own way in China and had suffered a lot of casualties trying to subdue Chinese. They only held a small portion of the country, mostly along the coast and even this area was prone to guerrilla attacks, which gave them a lot of trouble trying to garrison the areas they controlled.
The Japanese also clashed with the Russians along the Manchukuo border and had two major incidents at Lake Khasan link and Khalkhin Gol link, which makes interesting reading. So they knew that they had a powerful foe whatching them from the west.
The option of staying in China and stepping back from any clash with Russia, left with only two options, attacking the British commonwealth and the USA or just withdrawing out of China and being a good boy and getting their oil and rubber supplies back. We all know what option they choose and how this would affect the them if things didn’t go right, which it didn’t and cost them the cream of their manhood.
As a side bar, after the battles along the Manchukuo border, the Japanese signed a non-aggression pact with Russia. I don’t think that the Japs could have a sustained a war against the USSR in 1941/42 and would have been swallowed up by the vastness of the place, but the Russians made no bones about attacking through Manchukuo in August 1945 and giving the Japs a good kicking. This was around the same time as the atom bomb strikes, which meant that the Japs would have surrendered anyway. The Russians don’t do things by half’s and massed a huge army with plenty of T-34/85s in tow. This resulted in a one-sided campaign with one army on the top of their game and another so weak in modern weapons and demoralized, that it stood no chance.
Who was the bloke from the white board Chuck, I can’t place him.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 11, 2020 17:41:46 GMT
I think his name was Jodak (sp), not sure. He was treated shamefully over there. All he wanted to do was contribute something he knew a great deal about, and doing it without offense to anyone, except of course the moderator, who had an attack of purity of purpose. What a dumb shit.
Boards like these cannot survive if they confine themselves to one subject, and the exclusion of all others. For instance the LBH community is so small, in relation to all of the other historical interests out there. Recall when this board was set up, we, together, purposely designed it so that other areas of interest could be easily inserted and discussed, without interfering with the board's main purpose.
Little Big Horn is what brought us all together, but to think that is the only purpose for the board, is not taking into consideration the variety of interest of our members.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 11, 2020 19:55:40 GMT
I remember Jodak Chuck, was this on the white board as I don't think he would have got a look in on brown board.
I remember being snipped at by Rosebud because I tried to add stuff about WW2, as I recall he said that there are plenty of sites which cater for WW2, so don't be clouding this site with that stuff.
I don't believe that any site should be a one trick pony, in our case we should see how the LBH effected other conflicts and how other conflicts effected the LBH as everything has a chain reaction.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 11, 2020 21:50:46 GMT
You are absolutely correct Ian. Military History is one long continued narration, since man first picked up a rock and coveted something his neighbor had. To understand what came before is to understand the why or how of any conflict, past, present, or future. The thing they all share in common is that man is the key ingredient.
There are those in the LBH community that want the subject to be pure, and I suppose that their narrow focus is alright, but at the same time that narrow focus prevents them from understanding what they most seek to understand.
I have recently finished reading a book on North Africa that I will soon review here so that all may share in something I consider very good. You will not be pleased in one sense should you choose to read it. It again covers old plowed ground, previously discussed, about how British troops largely mishandled their armor in the desert. That though is not my point in bringing it up (again). Reading this narrative by two Brits, they go into the whys of what existed, and how it came about. In short, the attitude that existed in the British armored brigades had been little changed since Balaclava, and the only thing different were the mounts on which they rode. Put another way Bill Rini would have been right at home among friends and fellow travelers in the 1940-42 British armor. So what I learned was that it was not so much a flaw in doctrine, but rather a nineteenth century attitude riding in a Grant, Crusader, Honey, or Sherman. A fox hunt on tracks if you will. Tradition is no substitute for combined arms in battle. I encourage you to read the book. It's a very good one.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 12, 2020 12:00:52 GMT
Chuck, I don’t know where the motorized Infantry fit into a British armoured division circa 1940-42, if they don’t support the tanks, why have them if they don’t work together. I don’t know it the terrain had anything to do with it, along with the Infantry having no APCs to carry them. I would guess that Lorried Infantry [which is what we called them], would be shot up by artillery and machine gun and HE from the German tanks, before it could get into range.
The British grouped their tanks into two groups, Infantry and Cruiser, the Infantry tanks were no good in a desert type battle, the cruisers were but they kept breaking down, but here is a better description below, from someone who knows a lot more then me.
During early engagements, individual Armoured Regiments developed their own improvised methods of operating to overcome the dispersed nature of desert warfare. Cyril Joly noted how, in five weeks on patrol, his troop, ‘evolved certain simple drills which covered most of the troop’s tactics...We all acquired a great deal of confidence in...and made ourselves into a really effective fighting unit. During Crusader, The armoured experience was a mixture of separate Brigade actions which highlighted their new doctrine. Typical of this was 3rd RTR, who in one action ‘formed line for an attack which went in...the sqn was then encircled and it became a race to escape the circle.
In the immediate aftermath of Crusader, armoured combat was accepted as, ‘largely a matter of columns of all arms...over large distances...widely separated. Yet in reality the use of combined arms was rare, but battles had become more widely dispersed. The ideal assault doctrine was practiced during Operation Compass. Here the Infantry made prepared assaults supported by ‘I’ tanks and artillery bombardments, which worked well. Yet by the summer of 1941, British assaults were directed at too many terrain features as military objectives, which were spread over too wide an area. The armour should have co-operated with attached artillery but was viewed as an ‘area weapon’ and assumed to be useless against well dug-in AT guns.88In the same period of build-up the Armoured Brigades received METP No.2, which confirmed that the key Armoured Regimental doctrine was to attack. Lieutenant-Colonel Roberts of 3rd RTR noted that great stress had been placed upon fighting as a Brigade, ‘but when it came to operations each Regiment was sent off to conduct its own battle.
Even the Armoured Brigades were being dispersed into individual Regimental battles. The 3rd RTR commander noted that, ‘Days [were] spent selecting Brigade hull down positions from which they would fight. However, when the Axis advanced, 3rd RTR just failed to reach its allotted position in time and was forced to fight isolated from its fellow Regiments.
The 5th RTR and 8th Hussars were caught moving out of their night-time leaguers and were heavily mauled. The result of the actions were that the Armoured Brigades were quickly reduced in strength and suffered serious losses of tanks and experienced crews. During the middle phases of the campaign, combined arms assaults were attempted once again by British formations. At Gazala, Operation Aberdeen was a large-scale attempt to assault a key ridge feature. The attempt by the 32nd Army Tank Brigade on the Sidra Ridge was a complete failure.
Major Tatum of 42nd RTR, noted, ‘we came first under enemy artillery fire which had no effect on the tanks but a considerable effect on the lorry-borne infantry. The main assault took place south-east of the Sidra Ridge when the 22nd Armoured advanced with two Indian Brigades from 5thDivision into the ‘Cauldron’. The armour was quickly separated from the Infantry, and retired leaving two dispersed Brigades across the depression and ridge with supporting artillery on the Aslagh ridge. These Brigades were all overrun by rapid Axis counter-attacks. By the autumn of 1942 Montgomery ordered a large scale training program for Operation Lightfoot in September. Battle drills showed a more standardized and combined arms approach, ensuring close artillery support. During First Alamein the 2nd NZ Division had suffered from poor cooperation with supporting armour so that Freyberg ensured that an Armoured Brigade was now directly attached to the Division for Lightfoot. By 1943, the Eighth Army was much more confident of its battle doctrines against difficult Axis positions.
One of the main developments was its flexibility and the capacity to try a different approach. This happened against the Mareth Line when the New Zealand Corps outflanked the position. Equally at the Wadi Akarit, some variations to tactics were used, including attacking under a ‘no-moon’ period, but it took six days to stockpile artillery ammunition. Here training was considered unnecessary as, ‘the plan of attack was simple and after the customary fashion. The Army had developed a well-versed doctrine of assault. The full development of what became British and Allied assault doctrine was seen during the final assault on the Tunis bridgehead in May 1943. The plan of attack was designed by General Alexander and made full use of an Artillery Corps and nearly 1,200 aircraft in direct support to a four Division combined arms assault. British doctrine had developed a long way from the modest Regimental and Brigade.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 12, 2020 17:51:38 GMT
I generally agree with all those comments.
Crusader was by far the worst performance of British armor. Part of that is due to the fact that the British armored regiments were fought pure, as opposed to being in all arms battle groups, mixing tanks, mechanized Infantry, and artillery into the same battle group, where the weakness of the one arm could be made up for by the strengths of the other two. In this it was not only the lack of a tracked APC that prevented this, but also the lack of self propelled tracked artillery. Had that not been the case, the excellent British Infantry, and the outstanding 25 pounder howitzer could have equalized anything the Germans threw at them.
Crusader also saw, and was the main cause of initial British setbacks, the inflexibility of Cunningham's plan. Cunningham wanted to concentrate the 4th, 7th, and 22nd Armored Brigades, all of the 7th Armored Division, along with the division's support group at a single point, expecting Rommel to attack him. and then defeat Rommel by overwhelming numerical superiority. Rommel on the other hand thought the Crusader attack was nothing more than a reconnaissance in force designed to foil his intended assault on Tobruck. Rommel therefore initially refused to accept battle. When that happened the three armored brigades went off their point of consolidation, looking for Rommel in three different directions. When Rommel realized that Crusader was indeed a full blown offensive, then gathered his forces, he met each of these three armored brigades separately, and smashed each one of them in turn. Cunningham had no Plan B in place, to use in the event that Rommel did not do exactly what Cunningham expected.
There is all the difference in the world in tanks and artillery supporting dismounted Infantry, a slow deliberate process, and tanks, Infantry, and artillery fighting a high speed mobile battle. I find no fault for the most part of how the British used the I tanks.
One of the things I have never mentioned to you Ian is that from an Infantryman's point of view the tank is not as dangerous as you may think. Our doctrine for dismounted Infantry in defense, is to let the tanks run over you and into your rear, but at the same time separate those tanks from their Infantry, and deal with the attacking Infantry by forcing them to dismount, by a combination of small arms, automatic weapons and protective artillery fires. Tanks are blind without Infantry, and can be dealt with later most of the time. It was to counter this that the BMP and Bradley were born, but good solid dug in Infantry does not have much to fear from them either. Tanks, Mech Infantry, and guns are at their best when they can use shock action/effect to get among the enemy before they dig in.
Your Achilles heel was in not developing an APC and self propelled gun in my opinion. When you couple that with high spirited armor, you have a winning team. Motorized Infantry and towed artillery just does not cut the mustard in mobile battle.
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